An online system for sharing knowledge (modules) and creating courses (or anything else that can be made from the reorganization of existing modules in the system)
Skills required to live and work in the 21st century, often referred to as the 7 Cs, though there are competing discussions of exactly which skills are encompassed here
Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching: a site for online teaching materials, peer reviewing, and general pedagogy discussions
OER Lesson Plan
Use Jamendo, Audacity, Windows Movie Maker or iMovie, and Photo Pin to create sets of vocabulary videos for Wordia aimed at high school (it seems to be a site mostly aimed at younger levels, so maybe this is better accomplished using Wordia as a model and housing all those videos in a YouTube channel or on VocabAhead)
Use Google URL Shortener to post QR codes for all vocabulary words
Fill out this Online Tools Comparison Chart:
Google Sites
Wikispaces
Merlot
My eCoach
Livebinders
Moodle
Ease of Use
I'm comfortable with HTML so I don't mind working with Google Sites. I could see it appearing complex to someone without background knowledge, though.
But if someone just wants to make a simple site and not get bogged down with details, it would be pretty easy to put something together with Google Sites. The interface walks you through the process.
Since all Wikispaces wikis are available from the My Wikis dropdown at the top of the page, there's something very easy about moving from wiki to wiki and I like that. Leaving comments on a page is easy and it's quick to get to all the comments that have been left on your work.
The user interface (UI) isn't something that brings me back to this site. There are a lot of things to click through to get what I want and the organization of the site doesn't make it very easy to search for my content area and my grade level.
It's fine. I don't really have much to say here.
I like that search parameters allow for subject area and grade level, along with keywords and the like. That makes it easy to find what you're looking for. I like that there's an access key if you only want to give a few people access to your LiveBinder and that there's an option to fill a binder with the results of a Google search (I filled one with "high school writing contests 2012").
There are a lot of things that you need to fill in to create a class and a site and assignments. If you're dedicated to the task, it's not horribly difficult to do, but it is time consuming.
Appropriateness of Format
This would be a fine tool to use to create a classroom web site. There are tools that allow you do to nearly anything; you can't easily embed JavaScript, but just about everything else is on the table.
Any user could edit another user's page. For high school, this would be a logistical nightmare in immature settings. I'm not sure I would use it for assignments, though I might use it for scripts, review sessions, or other projects.
Again, the UI makes this feel like it's an older site that hasn't been updated. The limited search parameters narrow the use of the site. But this has made it to my list of sites to go to when I need an idea of how to teach a particular topic in a new way or something I've never done before.
It seems like there's nothing here that Google Sites and/or School Loop (or other similar homework/gradebook sites) don't do. I don't know why I'd be convinced to pay for such a service that I can get for free. Is there something behind the scenes that makes, say, grading easier?
This is a good way to throw several links together so students can look at them. Since the list of links is always at the top of the page, students get the experience of visiting the full linked site and the ease of going to the next site by a quick visit to the top of the page.
This feels like a enterprise-wide product, not something a solo high school teacher would or should use. The format is fine once everything is up and rolling. I do know of schools out there that use Moodle and there's a huge community around this product creating new plugins and customization options so that's a big plus.
Overall Design
Since the design can be tailored to nearly whatever you want, this is all in the control of the one who makes the site.
Not as customizable as other possibilities, but it gets the job done.
Weak design on this one. See my previous UI comments.
Not as customizable as other possibilities, but it gets the job done.
With those links at the top of the screen and the site being loaded into a frame, the site provides a nice feel. Since so often a binder has quite a few links, I wonder if side navigation would be a prettier option.
Since the design can be tailored to nearly whatever you want, this is all in the control of the one who makes the site.
Availability of Templates
There are a lot of templates to choose from and several that are posted elsewhere.
Not as customizable as other possibilities, but it gets the job done.
There are templates for how blocks of content are arranged on any page or site you create.
I don't know since I don't have an account and haven't created a site through eCoach.
There are some layout and color options that allow for the binder to become something more like a handout (Edit Menu >> Text Layout and you've got choices that would allow you to include directions/questions for each page in the binder).
There are a lot of templates to choose from and several that are posted elsewhere.
Ability to Meet Universal Access Requirements
Things can be embedded into the site that help, but that would require the one putting the site together to collect links and embed code from several other sites. Google Sites, in and of itself, doesn't provide a lot of material to screen read or include video or otherwise customize content delivery. This is true across the sites to be reviewed here and that's not a bad thing. All of these sites make it possible for a diligent site creator to gather UA tools and embed them on the page. The weakness this might point out is that the resources out there to create a solid UA site are spread so far out and none of these sites make it easy to click-n-go.
Appropriateness for Your Purposes
My school uses School Loop, so many of the features of these sites are not something I would use. I like these tools, some of them even more than I like School Loop, but if we want to get a school-wide effort going, I can't go rogue and do my own thing! I might use Google Spaces to gather a few links together (and there is room in School Loop to point to a different teacher web site, but it would be easier to use School Loop for everything due to assignments automatically appearing on a course page, Course Lockers with links to handouts, etc.).
I might use this as a place for students to keep reflection notes, similar to what we did in this class. I've got that 20% Time project I'm thinking of an a Wikispace could be a good place to put some ideas down and to see what colleagues are thinking about. Beyond using it for notes, though, I'm not sure how much I'd use this site. Seems like too big a margin for error and not enough of a benefit over other solutions.
This site doesn't have a very friendly UI and that's off putting, making it feel like more of a chore to search through than a joy. Still, this is another good warehouse site that I can go to.
Especially since this is a pay service, it's not appropriate for me to use.
I like the idea of using this site to organize each day of a unit.
This is a much bigger solution than any one teacher should choose. Again, my school uses School Loop (and more and more schools are going with school-wide solutions) so it wouldn't make any sense to require students to become familiar with a completely different environment for my class alone. It's bad enough that I'm adding Edmodo to their mix!
Likelihood I'll Use This
I might use this from time to time
I'm on the fence about this one...
It will be in my bag of tricks when I'm looking for something.
I will not use this
I might use this, though I already have similar solutions that I don't have to create yet another account for!
- Open Educational Resources (OER)
Educational materials (lectures, handouts, worksheets, videos, quizzes, tests, etc.) that are available online for free- Open Source
Software that makes its source code open for modification, usually collaboratively and for free- Copyright
The term given to the set of rights that govern the legal use of any created work- Intellectual Property Rights
The term given to the set of rights that govern the legal use of any created idea- Creative Commons
A site that makes free and easy to use/read copyright terms simple to put in effect on a created work- Public Domain
Works not restricted by any copyright- CC Licenses
The different levels of Creative Commons licenses that may be applied to a created work- Curriki
A site for creating, sharing, and finding "learning resources" or lesson plans and handouts for K-12- Thinkfinity
A Verizon sponsored online warehouse of lesson plans reviewed by a set of content partners ranging from NEA to The Smithsonian- Connexions
An online system for sharing knowledge (modules) and creating courses (or anything else that can be made from the reorganization of existing modules in the system)- P2PU
Peer 2 Peer University: an online system for working collaboratively to learn topics within P2PU's set of "schools" or areas of interest- EPICEd
An online environment (wiki) for sharing resources and otherwise engaging in professional development (PD)- 21st Century Skills
Skills required to live and work in the 21st century, often referred to as the 7 Cs, though there are competing discussions of exactly which skills are encompassed here- Wiki
An easy-to-edit and easy-to-create collaborative online database- Merlot
Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching: a site for online teaching materials, peer reviewing, and general pedagogy discussions- Blog
An online journal/diary. A place to easily type ideas and publish them to the online worldModule 2 Notes
- Respond to the questions on this Google Form for your Module 2 notes.
Done!Module 3 Notes
- Respond to the questions on this Google Form for your Module 3 notes.
Done!Module 4 Notes
- Repost the link to your Google Docs Web Resource List
OER Course Resource List- Post the link to your lesson plan.
OER Lesson PlanUse Jamendo, Audacity, Windows Movie Maker or iMovie, and Photo Pin to create sets of vocabulary videos for Wordia aimed at high school (it seems to be a site mostly aimed at younger levels, so maybe this is better accomplished using Wordia as a model and housing all those videos in a YouTube channel or on VocabAhead)
Use Google URL Shortener to post QR codes for all vocabulary words
But if someone just wants to make a simple site and not get bogged down with details, it would be pretty easy to put something together with Google Sites. The interface walks you through the process.